Querying a table with an array of json objects in RedbeanPHP - php

Question

I'm having trouble working in Redbean PHP with querying a table with an array of json objects in a single field, and producing a report on it.
I want to get a report with subtotals of all staff with notes by the category. I know this should be easy/obvious but I'm just not getting it properly.
I have a database, with:
table clients
with columns:(int) client_id, (string) client_name, (array of json) notes
notes is an array of json with
(int) note_id, (int) note_category_id, (int) staff_id, (string) description, (memo) content, (date) note_date
table staff with columns (int) sid, (string) sname
table categories with columns (int) cat_id, (string) cat_name
So in pseudocode (since I'm still trying to figure this all out)
I need to run a query like: (with parameters in brackets)
R::getAll('Select * from Join (staff, categories, clients)
On (staff.sid=clients.services.staff_id, categories.cat_id=clients.services.note_category_id)
Where (clients.services.note_date Between [startdate] and [enddate],
categories.cat_name IN [chosencateg], staff.sname IN [pickednames])
Orderby sname Asc, cat_name Asc, note_date Desc ');
report output format:
Filters used: [picked filter choices if any]
-----------
[sname]
-- note category: [cat_name] 1
[note_date] 1 [description] 1 [content] 1
[note_date] 2 [description] 2 [content] 2
note category 1 subtotal
-- note category: [cat_name] 2
[note_date] 3 [description] 3 [content] 3
[note_date] 4 [description] 4 [content] 4
note category 2 subtotal
staff subtotal
[sname] 2 ...
I'm asking a fairly generic one because I'll have to work with a number of similar tables, and maybe seeing a query template will help my understanding.
Thanks for any help.

Answer 1

redbean is fantastic and - getAll is just scratching the surface and truly isn't working with redbean at all really... Read up on it here:
Here's a query template to get you started:
Query Template:
1)
R::getAll('Select * from Join (staff, categories, clients)
On (staff.sid=clients.services.staff_id, categories.cat_id=clients.services.note_category_id)
Where (clients.services.note_date Between :startdate and :enddate,
categories.cat_name IN (:chosencateg), staff.sname IN (:pickednames))
Orderby sname Asc, cat_name Asc, note_date Desc ');
You could also simply use:
2)
R::getAll('Select * from Join (staff, categories, clients)
On (staff.sid=clients.services.staff_id, categories.cat_id=clients.services.note_category_id)
Where (clients.services.note_date Between ? and ?,
categories.cat_name IN (?), staff.sname IN (?))
Orderby sname Asc, cat_name Asc, note_date Desc ');
The only difference is that query template 1 uses named parameters (so it's going to look to the array of params that you pass it to contain an associative array with parameters named in the same way as they are in the query). While template 2 requires simply an array of parameters with the indexes lined up with the order in which the ? marks appear in your query.
Anyway... the query should return an associative array of your columns representing rows. a var_dump would look something like this:
Array
(
[client_id] => 1,
[client_name] => "joe",
[noes] => "[
{note_id=1
,note_category_id=1
,staff_id=1
,description=blah blah
,content=blah blah blah blah
,content=some content for this note
,note_date=12/06/2018
}
]"
[sid] => 100,
[sname] => "some staff name"
[cat_id] => 100
[cat_name] => "some category name"
)
Notice how the notes field has just come out as a string (I know the json above is not properly formed json, I'm just trying to show an example).
I assume that what you want is to have that string converted into an array so you can work with it as if it were data and not a string. So the below should get you started with that:
Once you have it out of the database you should be able to access it like this:
$result = R::getAll($query,
['startdate'=> $mystartDate
,'enddate' => $myEndDate
,'chosencateg'=>$myChosenCategory
,'pickednames'=>$myPickedNames
]);
// this would output the json string to your screen
echo $result['notes'];
but it seems like you want to work with the json as if it were part of your data - so... you would need to decode it first.
// decode my notes field:
foreach(array_key($result) as $key) {
/* you are working with a multidimensional array in this loop
, use $key to access the row index. Each row index
will contain named column indexes that are column names from the database
*/
$result[$key]['decoded_notes'] = json_decode($result[$key]['notes'],true);
}
// I now have a new column in each row index, containing 'notes'
as another associative array
// the statement below now results in an array to string conversion error:
echo $result[someIndexNumber]['decoded_notes'];

Answer 2

So, I decided I would want this in MySQL (5.7) so as to use its capabilities. To do this I used string manipulation. MySQL 8 adds json_table functions which would have been nice to have.
I converted each array of JSON notes into lines of 'INSERT INTO temptable' to convert the array list into temptable rows,
one JSON object per row, adding the client_id to each object, then
EXECUTEing those statements.
SET #allnotes = (
SELECT json_arrayagg(REPLACE(`notes`,'{', CONCAT('{"id_client": ', id_client, ', '))) /* add id_client to each note object */
FROM clients
WHERE `notes` != '' AND `notes` != '[]' ); /* no empty note cases */
SET #allnotes = REPLACE(REPLACE(#allnotes ,'"[',''),']"','' ); /* flatten out outer array of each note */
SET #allnotes = REPLACE(REPLACE(#allnotes ,'{','("{'),'}','}")' ); /* INSERT INTO string formatting for the objects */
DROP TEMPORARY TABLE IF EXISTS jsonTemporary;
CREATE TEMPORARY TABLE IF NOT EXISTS jsonTemporary (anote json);
SET #allnotes = REPLACE(REPLACE(#allnotes,'[','INSERT INTO jsonTemporary (anote) VALUES '),']',';');
PREPARE astatement FROM #allnotes;
EXECUTE astatement;
/* totals */
SELECT concat(staff.last_name,", ",staff.first_name) AS sname,
categories.name AS cat_name,
count(anote->'$.id_client') AS cat_total,
FROM jsonTemporary
JOIN categories ON cast(anote->'$.note_category_id' as unsigned)=categories.id
JOIN clients ON clients.id_client=anote->'$.id_client'
JOIN staff ON staff.id=anote->'$.staff_id'
WHERE anote->'$.note_date' >= "2018-10-01" AND anote->'$.note_date' <= "2018-12-31"
GROUP BY sname, cat_name;
/* all notes */
SELECT concat(staff.last_name,", ",staff.first_name) AS sname,
categories.name AS cat_name,
anote->'$.note_date' AS n_date,
anote->'$.description' AS description,
anote->'$.content' AS content,
FROM jsonTemporary
JOIN categories ON cast(anote->'$.note_category_id' as unsigned)=categories.id
JOIN clients ON clients.id_client=anote->'$.id_client'
JOIN staff ON staff.id=anote->'$.staff_id'
WHERE anote->'$.note_date' >= "2018-10-01" AND anote->'$.note_date' <= "2018-12-31"
GROUP BY sname, cat_name;
DROP TEMPORARY TABLE IF EXISTS jsonTemporary;